Vice President and Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Sara Duterte met with Go Negosyo recently to explore the possibility of incorporating entrepreneurship to support or complement the senior high school curriculum. In a meeting last October 17, 2023, senior advisers of Go Negosyo led by founder Joey Concepcion, discussed with the Vice President several avenues in which entrepreneurship skills can be included in the school curriculum, among them through direct mentoring by veteran entrepreneurs, and another is through the help of private companies, specifically those engaged in the agriculture sector.

“Our idea is if we open up this avenue to young people, there would be a way for them to find an alternative path to success,” said Concepcion. Under the current curriculum, Filipino children in public schools attend for a minimum of 13 years under the K-12 program. An average of four more years would be added if the student decides to pursue higher education.

“Not all families have the resources to support children through the completion of the entire curriculum,” he said. “We could help these young people find their path, focus on it, and maybe one day the students can turn it into a business,” he said, adding that there are many successful entrepreneurs who succeeded even without the benefit of higher education.

Among the possible paths that were discussed in which entrepreneurship can be incorporated into the curriculum isthrough proven mentoring programs that are already being implemented by Go Negosyo to mentor active and aspiring entrepreneurs all over the country. One of these is through roadshows in which a successful entrepreneur is sent to mentor the students at their respective schools; another way is for students to observe actual mentoring with active and aspiring entrepreneurs. 

Go Negosyo has employed different methods of reaching out to potential entrepreneurs. It has conducted plenary events targeted toward women, the youth, OFWs, as well as thematic events that focus on introducing MSMEs to digital platforms and toopportunities offered by the tourism sector. During the pandemic, it ported its mentoring programs to social media and conferencing platforms, enabling it to continue mentoring entrepreneurs in the provinces and even across the ASEAN region.

The Vice President welcomed the help of Go Negosyo and shared that the DepEd can use its assistance in improving its agriculture and fisheries schools as well as in conceptualizing a way for it to put its idle lands to productive use in teaching children basic gardening and farming skills.

She also said that entrepreneurship mentoring can become part of co-curricular activities, adding that preparatory activities can begin before the DepEd pilots the enhanced senior high school curriculum next school year. The feasibility of training teachers in entrepreneurship mentoring was also raised.

Concepcion said entrepreneurship training for senior high school students would be timely. “We want to inspire the students to become entrepreneurs because we now have a more conduciveenvironment, thanks to how social media and digital technology are bringing down so many barriers to entrepreneurship and making it more inclusive,” he said.

This would not be the first time that Go Negosyo has collaborated with government agencies for its entrepreneurship advocacy. Its formal training programs – KMME and KAMMP– are implemented in partnership with the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Agriculture, respectively, while its mall-based mentoring roadshow 3M on Wheels is conducted in coordination with local government units. Its regional mentoring program ASEAN Mentorship for Entrepreneurs Network is implemented through the ASEAN Business Advisory Council and the ASEAN Coordinating Committee on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, and is funded by the Japan ASEAN Integration Fund.

Accompanying Concepcion during the meeting with VP Duterte were Go Negosyo Senior Advisers Engr. Merly Cruz, Josephine Romero and Dr. William Dar, and Executive Director Mina Akram. Attending from DepEd were ASec. for Curriculum and Instruction Alma Ruby Torio and USec. Atty. Michael Wesley Poa